Valero donating food

It is really great to know that tomorrow, the employees of Valero Energy Corp. will be stuffing a 27-foot-long truck (donated by Valero) full of food for donation to the San Antonio Food Bank. The Food Bank does amazing work feeding folks across South Texas.

But this act of generosity by Valero is not without a certain sense of irony. Donations to the Food Bank are down thanks in large part to the higher cost of food. The cost of food has gone up because of the higher cost of fuel and the push to turn crops like corn into fuel. Valero sells an abundance of fuel across South Texas.

I’m not going to be one of those guys that screams about the oil refiners gouging customers with $3.25 gasoline. It’s a market thing.

People are uncomfortable with the volatility in the stock market so they turn to commodities like oil which has helped push the price of a barrel up to $113. We, as Americans, also love our cars. To drive our cars, we buy gasoline. If we want to keep driving we can expect to pay more at the pump.

Unless we make some serious changes, we might one day need food donations from (insert oil company here).